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Beware of geeks bearing gifts

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Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#51

Post by icebraining »

mattschoch wrote: post #37

The last paragraph: "Yes, of course everyone deserves access to the Internet. But they deserve access to an open Internet where they can own their Digital Selves..." Does everyone actually deserve internet access? Is that an inalienable human right? If people want something of value, they have to provide value in return. If Google and Facebook see value in the people's data, then they are willing to give them "free"…

There are hundreds (thousands?) of years of discussion on positive versus negative rights, and not everyone is convinced either way. It doesn't seem particularly fruitful to open that can of worms here.

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#52

Post by kisil_reboot »

> Google and Facebook want to give everyone access to the Internet because they need more raw materials. More data. The first sentence seems basically true, but the second, and the general gist of the article, is off-base. Both companies make money, on aggregate, when there are more people using the internet. Google gets more searches, more youtube views. Facebook gets more, and more active, members. Both are monetizable eyeballs without needing any fancy data extraction.

Do we really need to posit some nefarious lust for "your data!!1" here? I don't see the need; the simpler hypothesis has enough explanatory power.

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#53

Post by pearkes »

Dogamondo wrote: post #46
pearkes wrote: post #14

> What Facebook and Google have done is discovered a village with no water and they plan to bring them cheap Coke to buy when—if their motives were truly honorable—there is another glaringly obvious option: you could teach them to build a well. Funny you should mention Coke. It turns out that these businesses desiring profits can pretty efficiently solve or make improvement to problems, like distribution, in places l…

Hey pearkes, your reply was intelligent and thought provoking. You've made a valid point, provided sources and had a structurally well set out argument. But I just can't help myself to try and preserve the English language and point out the faux-pas I see when intelligent people comment. Please don't use 'then' when the correct word is 'than'. It shits me to no end. I really hope that was a typo and if it is, do excu…

HA! I literally caught myself doing this yesterday.[1] It's a terrible habit. My mother would agree and give you a high five. :)

[1] https://twitter.com/pearkes/status/369868903456862208

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#55

Post by bayesianhorse »

plg wrote: post #31

We shouldn't be relying on for-profit companies to provide a service as basic (in today's modern world) and powerful (education, health, etc) as internet access... because they have nefarious motives in mind. Instead we should be relying on our governments, who have our interests in mind and whose primary job is to protect our rights. ... .. um... oops never mind

In Africa it's a hard proposition to find a government that definitively has less nefarious motives than Google...

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#56

Post by Tichy »

jlees wrote: post #47
Tichy wrote: post #20

Providing internet access is not the same as locking somebody into their cloud services. There is such a thing as win win in business. Yes, Google benefits if more people are on the internet, because of the network effect - more people searching, more stuff to be found, and, yes, more potential advertising space. It's useful even without lock in.

Depends on the implementation, though; if you need to create and sign in with a $foo account to use the sponsored-by-$foo internet connection, it's not lock-in per se, but has some of the same effects.

That kind of thing would indeed be questionable, but it didn't sound to me as if Google wanted to implement it that way. From their history it also seems unlikely (ie giving away Android).

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#57

Post by at-fates-hands »

drcongo wrote: post #26
pearkes wrote: post #14

> What Facebook and Google have done is discovered a village with no water and they plan to bring them cheap Coke to buy when—if their motives were truly honorable—there is another glaringly obvious option: you could teach them to build a well. Funny you should mention Coke. It turns out that these businesses desiring profits can pretty efficiently solve or make improvement to problems, like distribution, in places l…

Funnily enough, Coke are already draining the wells of villages that do have them. http://www.theguardian.com/money/2006/mar/19/business.india1

It's the same thing Pepsi is accused of as well:

http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2011/pepsipositivewater.ht...

"Pepsico, one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world, has begun claiming that it has achieved "positive water balance" in India, that it is "Giving Back MORE WATER Than We Take".

Wonderful as it may sound, Pepsico's claims of achieving "positive water balance" simply do not add up."

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#58

Post by ssivark »

pearkes wrote: post #33
drcongo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, Coke are already draining the wells of villages that do have them. http://www.theguardian.com/money/2006/mar/19/business.india1

Yea, let me clear – I'm not saying a huge multi-national corporation is squeaky clean because of one positive thing they've done. The point I was trying to make is that the motivation of said company may not be to "save the world", but the results (and the impressive efficiency of attaining them) may do a lot of good, even if indirectly.

Positive results occur only when those companies are well-regulated, else exploitation is the most probable outcome. If companies companies can exploit and make more money, they will usually go ahead with that.

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#59

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

I really hope nobody takes this guys post seriously. For the one situation that I am personally familiar with, Western companies taking an interest in Indian villages has been a great boon to the locals.

There are many idealists in the West that don't understand what the impact is of even simple things that they take for granted. If a man provides fresh drinking water to a remote Indian village, and if the water comes in bottles with advertisements for products, it might seem evil to this guy, but actually, from the point of view of the villager, its still an unambiguously good thing.

Nobody at the bottom of the Pyramid cares whether or not they have to log into Google in order to access their free online classes from EdX, Udacity, Khan academy etc. They are just thankful to have that access, which they did not have in the past.

And beyond that, its not like they cannot create a profile with Google and then ignore it, and connect to the Internet outside of Google products. Its not like Google blocks access to other search engines, or to other competing services. You still have access to the Internet.

Also, its not even clear that you HAVE to make a Google ID to access Loon internet.

This poster should try some other mechanism ... some non-corporate mechanism, and try to bring some benefits to India. If he succeeds, then I will support his model.

I certainly won't withdraw support from Google over his bullshit blog post which has zero touch with reality.

Re: Beware of geeks bearing gifts

#60

Post by jff »

mattschoch wrote: post #37

The last paragraph: "Yes, of course everyone deserves access to the Internet. But they deserve access to an open Internet where they can own their Digital Selves..." Does everyone actually deserve internet access? Is that an inalienable human right? If people want something of value, they have to provide value in return. If Google and Facebook see value in the people's data, then they are willing to give them "free"…

These days you can't hardly swing a "Coexist" bumper sticker without hitting someone claiming that X, Y, and/or Z are inalienable human rights.
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